I, Malovici
by PheonRen
Summary: Please read The Unwilling Escort and Whitecrow's Naming first. This story is meaningless to those who haven't. For those who have and have demanded it, herein lies Malovici's story. Should I say, "By popular demand"? Mature for violence, language, gore, possible 'lemons'.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Oddly enough, of all the secondary/ supporting characters I've written about through the years, the one that has gained the single most fascination is Malovici, the undead. Many people have expressed that he is "my favorite character" and almost universally,  
there are demands for Malo's backstory.

For the most part, I have kept it secret-as Malo himself has always done. In part, I wanted to preserve his mystery, but also,  
it's a long and rather convoluted story.

In recent years, I have begun writing paranormal romances as pen name Shannon Phoenix. This takes up the majority of my time now, as well it should since it is currently my only income thanks to real life issues that no longer allow me to work outside of the home.

But there comes a day when you reach a threshold. Enough people have asked, wheedled, cajoled, and begged that Malovici has finally given in and, with much disgruntlement, agreed to tell his story.

I warn you however, dear fans, that there are rules to this endeavor:

There will not be editing.

There will not be proofreading

Some chapters will come quickly, and sometimes it may be weeks between the chapters

If you can live with these rules, then you are welcome along the journey while Malovici tells his story.

Oh, and as you already know, this is no fluffy story and doesn't have a happy fluffy love forever ending. If you don't know that yet, you haven't read the other two stories as I warned you to do!

**Chapter 1**

The Tauren lying on the bed was ancient. He had grown gaunt as the years had passed, and his eyes were rheumy with age. Once mighty shoulders had sunk in on themselves and were now stooped and trembled with time.

The room was dark, his family and friends standing beyond the door that closed it off from the house. The only other living being in the room was an Orc equally old, equally gnarled by the ravages of time. The Orc sat silent and still, his body dwarfing the chair he leaned back in.

The Tauren's once mighty chest rose and fell as his breath rasped harshly through his nostrils. His dark pelt gleamed slightly in the scarce light from a burning brazier nearby.

Yet he had asked for this time of privacy with his two closest friends. One living, one dead. His spirit had never flagged through the years. As the privations of age had finally claimed him with indecorous haste over the last few months, he had still kept his humor and his placid personality. His wife had died many years before, and the decline of his health had begun then, and hastened in the final months; until now there remained only the vigilant watching for his imminent demise.

No magic on Azeroth existed that could hold off death due to age, once one stood before its door.

The ancient Tauren's hand rose in supplication. "Malovici," his voice rasped, "tell me."

The glowing eyes of the monster squatting on the top of the back of a chair in the corner peered at him, unchanged despite the passage of time. His ever-rotting flesh as crossed by lines of sewing that never seemed to quite hold him together.

"It's a boring story, old man."

The Tauren laughed. "Nothing about you has ever been boring, Malo. Now tell me. It has been my life's desire to know where you came from and who you really are."

"You never did have much ambition," the Forsaken Dreadguard grunted at his friend.

Slowly, he unwrapped himself from the chair, stepping down from its back with great ease. He moved the chair closer to the dying Tauren.

"Fine," he told Whitecrow. "I will tell you, but only because you'll be dead before it's over, and dead Tauren tell no tales."

Not offended in the least, Whitecrow laughed with a low chuffing sound that filled the room with echoes of days past. Once robust, his laugh was now a mere echo of his own memories. "Just tell me already."

"Alright," the disgruntled Dreadguard replied, "but I ain't going to yell the whole time, so don't keep yelling 'what?' 'what?' at me, you deaf old coot."

But neither the Tauren nor the Orc were surprised or hurt by the Forsaken's manner. The affection on his grizzled face was clear only to those who knew him well and for decades; but to them, it was poignantly so.

"Well, I suppose we can start in the middle. That always seems to be the best choice. Before I was dead, I was a Prince."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I was a prince in the kingdom of Kul Tiras. I was young, impetuous, stupid, and idealistic. In other words, I was alive.

_The aged Tauren on the bed chuckled. "We're not all like that, you know."_

_The undead creature snorted. "Of course you are. If you weren't, you'd know you were and do something about it. Now stop interrupting, old man, or you'll be dead before the story's done. You don't want to die curious. I hear it makes you reincarnate as a cat, which means I'd probably skin you and eat and you without ever knowing it was you."_

_"You don't eat cats."_

_The dead thing ceased cleaning his remaining fingernails with the knife and pointed it at the Tauren. "Not the point. Shut yer damned mouth." He returned to his nails-and his story._

As I was saying, I was young. I thought I was invincible. More than that, though, I thought that the world was my oyster. I could have anything I wanted, and I would rule everything I could see. I had different ideas from my father, who wanted to rule through commerce. I had different ideas from my brother, the heir; he wanted to rule through force. I thought I should rule simply by the right to do so, because of my blood.

However, I wasn't first in line for the throne, so I had no business thinking about ruling at all. But I was bored, so I decided that I would try to find a political marriage that would move me up the ranks in another land.

Women in need of a political alliance were few and far between, so I finally turned my eyes in a direction that no one else wanted to go... Dalaran.

_The dead man stopped speaking to pull leather thread and a needle out of the pack lying on the bureau next to the chair he squatted upon. Threading the needle patiently, he went on with his story as he began to make small, neat stitches along a seam of flesh that had separated from the rest on his abdomen._

In Dalaran, there were four young women, all of whom were being paraded in front of as many political suitors as possible. The ruling family there wanted a political alliance, but there was still distrust towards magic users. We all respected them, but we also feared them.

I thought that, if I accepted one of these girls as my bride, I would have a foothold with the Magocrats. If I had influence with them, imagine the mighty armies I could wield in order to strengthen my position throughout the world. And, although not a Magocrat myself, I assumed that Dalaran leadership passed the same way as did the rest of the world's leaders... father to son.

Since Kel'Morik, the leader at the time, had no sons, I believed that I would be in line for his rulership if I should marry the eldest of his daughters. My plans were grand. I was ambitious, and foolish. I was a human, and she was part elf. It was forbidden to continue the line of the elves.

I didn't know she was part elf. None of us did. Kel'Morik was human enough, and his name had been given to respect the high elves, according to him. None of us thought a thing of it. What did it matter if he was named to honor elves long ago gone?

And we all believed that every trace of the mad elves had been eliminated. It had been so long since they had lived in Lordaeron... what possible element of their madness could have remained?

_The Orc's voice cut through the recitation, "So you were always this big of a dick? That's good to know." _

_The Dreadguard snorted. "Don't seem to me that you two want to hear this story at all. Ye just want to tell yer own version 'o it. Ye go right ahead if yer gonna keep interruptin' me." He generally chastised his friends in his mock-accent, and this time was no different._

_"Oh no, go ahead," the Orc snorted, "I'm nearly asleep. Only another few minutes and I should be out like a light at this rate."_

_Malovici ignored him and went back to sewing himself._

I first went to Kel'Morik to ask him for her hand in marriage. To my shock, despite his continual efforts to marry off the others, he adamantly told me that his eldest daughter, Merilina, was not available and not interested in any marriage offers.

Being a young, idealistic fool, that made me nothing less than determined to have her at any cost. I didn't know her, and I'd only seen her a few times. She was a tiny thing, with pale skin and hair the color of bleached silk. I had already thought that marrying her would be no hardship, but now... now I became obsessed with meeting her and wooing her.

Rule of Dalaran depended upon it, I was certain. In my youthful ignorance, I had decided that looks and station were the entire matter. It's a common folly of the living, to which I was not immune.

He didn't notice as, across the room, the two old men glanced at each other in surprise at the tender way he spoke of Merilina. His sepulchral voice had been positively adoring, something they'd never heard from him before.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

My plan to woo Merilina started out simply enough. After all, I was a prince. How hard could it be to woo a woman? Most of them fell at my feet if I so much as pointed there. In the area of romance, I wasn't arrogant so much as naive. I thought that it was my charm that brought them to me, and that women were easily won.

_The ancient, decrepit-seeming creature let out a gust of air, like a sigh through the boughs of a primordial tree. _

Merilina quickly disabused me of that notion. She wasn't one of the four daughters that Kel'Morik paraded before us all. She was daughter number 1-but there were five of them. Getting to her was the difficult part. Rumors said she was a shrew, or that she was touched in the head.

When I finally got to her, I presented myself in the most sanguine, erudite fashion. "I've come to marry you," said I. For what woman could resist? I was handsome, debonair, and titled.

"I'd prefer to bed a sewer rat than spend a moment in your company," said she.

Being the brilliant mastermind I was, I naturally protested most cheerfully, "Now that's a fine jest!" And I laughed, for I thought indeed it was a joke.

She turned to me fully, presenting herself directly, which a woman was not to do in those days, for women were not thought equal to men. "Let me make myself clear," said she, "so there is no mistake between us. You are a foul fellow, and I want no part of you."

Imagine it. I, a prince, and she daring to face me fully and speak direct to my face of such matters.

_The grinding sound that was the creature's chuckle filled the room._

Oh yes, I was most astounded. But I was not yet beat. "And of you, they say you are a shrew. But I did not believe these despicable whisperings, preferring instead to approach you fairly."

"Not only are you a foul fellow," came the response from her, "but you are a fool, as well. Begone and bother me no more."

"I shall have you," I pronounced, certain and clearly very suave. "You think me a fool, but in the end, you will come to appreciate my finer points."

"Oh?" said she, "and what finer points do you possess, pray tell?"

"I'm quite brilliant, if you must know." I was, after all, quite humble. A fact I would relate a moment later.

"Indeed," said my erstwhile bride, "brilliant. Naturally. For only a brilliant man would announce his intent to marry a woman he knows not remotely. A woman whose father he has not approached, a woman who is not to marry at all. Surely such wisdom is beyond that of the most learned of scribes."

_This time, the sound the dead man made would have been frightening to anyone else, but the two elders in the room glanced at each other in surprise. The Dreadguard, undead protector of the Queen, the eldest of the Undead... was laughing at himself as freely as if he were that young man he was talking about._

_Ignoring their surprise, he merely continued on with his story._

And thus it went. It would not have been such a disaster, had I understood her sarcasm, but I was quite filled with myself and I did not recognize it. Eventually, she realized that I was entirely certain in myself.

Of all the living, I was the greatest fool. In my arrogance, even after she dressed me down and-had I realized it at the time-entirely humiliated me, I still pursued her. Constantly, she slapped me down, and still... I could not be dissuaded. I began to dislike her, but still she was my route to the pinnacle of Dalaran, so I would not be dislodged. For me, it became a competition... she against me, and the throne the prize.

But in my eighteenth year, war came. My father, who was actually the wise leader that I was certain I was, sent me to the front. It was a minor skirmish, but it took the better part of a year to contain.

_Now there was something different in the sepulchral voice. A note of regret, perhaps, or maybe a sense of melancholy._

So much can happen in a few brief months of war. At the time, I didn't know that I would have centuries of it yet to come. I knew only that life was unaccountably cruel, and that suffering was real. Before those months, I had believed it to be something that the poor people claimed in order to prey upon the weak sensitivities of my father.

In my first year of war, I saw women raped, children killed savagely, and I saw men who had become friends die gruesome deaths. I was a fool, as Merilina had accused. I hadn't a clue as to the harsher realities of life, nor what it actually meant for men to war with each other.

When I returned, I was nineteen, but I was old. I had come from privilege and power, and found myself the meanest of men, living from a canteen and a backpack-and I better off than most around me. Now that I had tasted hardship and experienced the misery of loss, I gave up my pursuit of Merilina.

I understood at last where I had gone wrong. I had never seen her as a person, and never sought to know her. More than that, I had pursued her only for personal gain; a fact over which I experienced much self-recrimination at the time.

Of course, women being a whimsical and bizarre sort of creature... she soon stepped up to inquire as to why I had ceased in my pursuit. Like most of the living, once the attention she didn't want was gone, she craved it.

_He wagged a finger at the pair across the room. "I've told you a thousand times, the living are crazy."_

_A knock at the door made him jerk the leather thong he was sewing himself with and meander over to open the door._

_Leaning against it, he stared at the young girl who stood in the doorway. She was a half-breed, the daughter of the man on the bed, his youngest. "What'cha want?"_

_"I've brought my father his medicine."_

_"No medicine," the aged Tauren replied. "I want to stay clear minded for what time I have left."_

_The graceful woman, looking every inch the night elf despite her father's race, walked to the bed. "I made this one, daddy. It will ease the pain without clouding your mind. I learned this one from Shantille before she and Groll left for Pandaria."_

_"Alright, then." _

_When the old man on the bed was comfortable again, and his daughter gone, he prompted the Dreadguard to continue. "So Merilina started pursuing you, huh?"_

Not exactly. She just wanted to know why I'd stopped chasing her. I told her that it was clear she wasn't interested, and I had better things to do than waste my time on a shrew.

Then, she started pursuing me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_Returning to his abandoned chair, the animated corpse settled himself once more. This time, he pulled out a package of herbs and a satchel. He began to make poison vials as he chatted pensively._

Having just come back from a war, I was uninterested in Merilina's desire to get to know me. I answered her questions, but with little interest. But I was a young man still, and when she found me one day in my mother's gardens, I did not resist her when she pressed her lips against mine.

I don't know what it was about her, but when she kissed me, it was different. Maybe it was because I'd not had a woman in all of those months away at war. Perhaps it was something more, but whatever it was, it ignited something inside me.

She was beautiful, and smart. Far too smart to get involved with the boy I'd been before, and for that alone, I could now admire her.

When she began to seek me out over the next months, I alternately rebuffed her or indulged her advances, depending on the moment she chose to approach me. Looking back upon it, I think it was this which challenged her to pursue me.

_Malovici put the vials of poison carefully into a pack, his hands, more ancient than the aged Tauren's hands, were steady and as sure as ever. He stared into nothingness as he spoke again after a protracted silence._

Merilina's sisters were married off one by one over the next months, but Merilina herself remained unattached. When the last of her sisters married-to my own brother, no less- I at last took it upon myself to inquire into her unmarried status. It was then that she told me the truth of her heritage. She was part elf, and as such, she could not have children. She, herself, would likely go mad within a few years as the elven blood asserted itself.

_Anger sounded in the Dreadguard's voice when he spoke again._ I should have listened. I should have heeded the warning. But I did not. Like a fool, I allowed her to continue in her infatuation until I lost myself to it, as well.

I began to look forward to these days when she would come to the castle. She made excuses; a simple feat since her sister had married my brother. Every time she came, she would seek me out. We would sit, talking together until the hours had been wiled away.

Every young couple thinks they are being clever, and we were no different. My father had but two sons-myself and my brother. So when he realized what was happening, he called me to his study.

"You're to be married. Three suitable choices have been selected. You will spend one day each week with them for a period of three months. Then you shall decide which you will wed." I couldn't believe my ears when he said that to me. It was such a turnaround from years before, where he had steadily discouraged any such notions.

I escaped my fate that time, though. War came again, and I went once more to the front. I was the expendable one, and so it was my place.

I wrote to her every day, though I did not manage to send them in the post more often than a few times in a month. How was I to know that her father intercepted them? He, too, had realized the nature of the growing infatuation we held for each other.

And he knew, as I did not, that the madness had already begun to take root in Merilina's mind. I assumed that she, being such a strong natured person, would fight it off. In the balance of my youth, despite the months I spent at war, there was that profound belief that somehow, I was protected and invincible. By extension, naturally, so was the woman I believed myself in love with.

When I came home from the war this time, I believed she had forgotten me. For I never gained response to the multitudes of letters. Romantic fool that I was, I continued to write them, but had ceased to send them.

Upon my arrival, she came to visit her sister. I attempted to avoid her, but she came, as bold as you please, straight into my bedchamber.

She dropped the letters on my bed as I stood in my smallclothes, staring at her in surprise.

"I found these two months ago. My father stole them from me before I ever saw them. I stole them back." In that moment, all was forgiven, nearly forgotten, for her next words made it all well, "I love you, Malovici."

I took her virginity that night. Clumsy and without grace, it was... but I still remember it. I have no doubt that I always shall.

_The Tauren on the bed took that moment to begin coughing; a deep, hard, hacking cough that made the other two fear for him. It was some time before he subsided. His daughter rushed inside again, her voice chiding._

_"You mustn't distress him so," she snapped at the Dreadguard, unafraid._

_"I am not distressing him." The dead man stepped from his perch to stand staring up at the young woman. "I am aiding his transition out of this life and into the next."_

_"And how do you know what a man needs to ease his transition into death?" She slammed a fist down on one hip, fury in her stance and her gaze._

_The ragged skin on the dead man's face rose, creasing above nonexistent eyebrows. "Hello. Dead guy here. Been there, done it."_

_Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't die of old age."_

_His chuckle was hard, even harsh. "Says you."_

_"Fine, did you die of old age, then?"_

_The ancient Dreadguard shook his head. "If ya wanna know, ya gotta listen to the story like everyone else. I ain't jumpin' ahead."_

_The elven woman snorted. "I don't really care. What I care about is that you're making this harder on my father."_

_"Cindri!" The rebuke came from the Tauren on the bed. "He is doing what I asked of him. Sit down or get out, I've wanted to know this story most of my life."_

_Cindri huffed, then stomped over and took over the chair that the dead man had been occupying. Crossing her arms, she glared at him, as if challenging him to take the chair back. When he chuckled and jumped onto the foot of the bed, instead, squatting on the footboard, she growled._

_Malovici looked at Whitecrow. "She's the best of your offspring."_

_"And the most trying." It was agreement, of a sort, from the aged Tauren._

_Malovici grew quiet, clearly thinking of the next segment of the story he was spinning for his friends._


	5. Chapter 5

_a/n: Thank you so much for the reviews! It's good to know that people are enjoying the story. Once we get in to the real "meat and potatoes" I think it'll be better. And the good news is, that should be the upcoming chapter, yay!_

**Chapter 5**

Merilina was a wild woman, her nature more akin to that of a beast in some ways. She liked to run beneath the moon, barely clothed. For me as a young man, this was exciting and enticing. That night after we had lain together, she invited me to run with her. To hunt with her.

Hunting was a thing that I enjoyed, and so I went with her. Into the dark forest we went, the night sky above us as an endless sea of jewels thrown upon the fabric of life, the sounds of night creatures all around us. We were the ultimate hunters here, master and mistress of our domain.

I thought nothing of a woman hunting, though I knew it was forbidden. My Merilina was not like other women, you see. She was magnificent, and nothing in her was like other women. It only seemed right that she would flaunt the requirements of decorum and shed her clothing to run with me beneath the moon.

When we at last brought down a fat buck, we feasted. In her frenzy, she ate it raw, and I joined her, thinking it was an affectation of hers. You would be surprised to find that meat is quite sweet when it's raw.

_Malovici drew a deep breath released it, filling the air with a musty cloud that hung over everything like a whispering haze._

The next day, I was informed once more that I should immediately begin to meet with the women chosen for me as brides. All respectable and beautiful girls, I was told; though truthfully one rather resembled a horse. Oddly, 'tis she I remember the best of all. You might think that a hatchet-faced woman should cultivate a personality to offset it, but I must say that she was never informed of such. She was demanding, harsh, and belligerent.

Merilina, on the other hand, set about a most subtle campaign upon me; of which I remained blissfully unaware at the time. She held no hysterics, no rages. Rather she wept in my arms, entreating me to lay with her that she might have but 'one more moment' in my arms before I was most cruelly whisked away to the bed of another.

After my first meeting with my potential betrothed ladies, I came to my chamber to find Merilina crumpled in a corner, near naked and covered in blood. For a moment then, just a moment of abstract clarity, I shivered with fear. Perhaps, I wondered, for only a shaming instant, whether she might already be mad.

Of course, she was, but I loathed myself for not believing in her. I knelt beside her, and she cried out to me, wrapping me in bloody arms. She had hunted during the daytime; a dangerous thing for her and me both.

Yet, I loved her, and I could not send her away as she was. So I set about laying a bath for her.

"'Vicci," she begged me, for that was what she called me in our intimate moments, "come, make love to me. I shall never see ye again once they have their hooks within your heart. Give me one more moment to lay with you."

"Aye, of course, my love." I agreed, for have we not already established that I was both living, and young, and thus a fool? "Have first a bath, my dear. Then I shall-"

"There's no time for that. These may be our last moments together before we are discovered!"

So I lay with her and we soiled the bed linens with the blood of the hind, which covered her and soon myself. It was easy to ignore, for hadn't we done so many times lying in the darkness of the forest in both winter and spring?

The thought rose in me again that it was madness, but the very thought felt unfaithful to her. I let it go and lost myself to blood and sex and what I then thought was love. Love, this notion of the living, is itself madness, as my story proves.

What kind of madman lies with a woman covered in blood? What height of insanity must it take to cavort on sheets drenched in the dying embers of another life?

_A shudder ran through Malovici's frame. "It's true enough that I kill now, and I enjoy killing. It is, I suppose, its own sort of madness. But nothing like the grotesque pleasure I found in that experience. The worst of all was that I could not see my own madness. For love of a woman, what would I not do? Don't think that eating meat torn raw from a carcass and then frolicing in that blood was the last of the madnesses I would perform with the woman I loved. They were not." _

_He fell silent for a moment. The sounds of shifting and the wheezing of the Tauren's breath grew loud in the room until Malovici continued his tale._

It was a month later before she proposed the idea to me. It was cleverly done, I must say. We lay, once more covered in blood, though that night-and I shall never forget it-we had found only a calf we stole from some poor farmer. I had convinced myself that it wasn't stealing since I was a Prince and all belonged to the royal family forthwith.

The stars wheeled in the sky above us as we lay sated together; a mere tangle of limbs and bodies.

"I wish that we could run away together. Marry and live free. Perhaps we can find the elves and be as wild as they."

For one moment again, my disloyal mind stalled. "The elves are mad."

That night I dismissed the idea outright. She let it go quickly, and perhaps that was my undoing. Had she argued, I might have grown stubborn, but she laughed it off as merely a wish. And so the idea was planted... into fertile soil, I must admit.

We talked no more of it, and the days passed by with these secret meetings. They continued until at last, as was certainly inevitable... we were caught.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_Malovici stops for so long that the others become restless. At length, he continues, his voice quieter, causing them to lean forward to catch what is said._

My father had no choice once we were found together by a maid. Lying naked and bloody as we were, he sentenced us to death. There was such rage in him, until the others were gone. He took a moment alone with me, and for the first time in my life, I saw my indomitable father weep like a child.

He said nothing to me at all. It was that which hurt the worst. He said nothing, just sat on my bed and wept. It was as if I were already dead. I understood it, finally. How foolish I had been, and how much I had thrown away on an illicit love.

So great, though, was my madness that I still cared nothing for that. I cared that I save her, and naught else. I longed beyond words to grab her up and flee with her from the very man I loved most in the world. The love I held for her was the sort of crazed obsession that all youth experience. The love for my father was such that somehow, even as he sat weeping because he had to kill me, I still inherently believed could never be broken. Merilina might cease to love me, but my father? Never.

When he composed himself, ignoring my pleas and my arguments alike, he opened the door and said only, "Take him."

I fought the guards, but they were many and I was suddenly simply a man facing four other men. A youthful, foolish man who thought himself invincible and who found himself in a dungeon with nothing for company but rats, darkness, and cold damp.

_He rolled his shoulders slightly, an indication to others in the room that he was uncomfortable. Others might not have known, but these friends of his understood it._

So I did the only thing that I could. I exploited what I knew as the prince to escape. I used tunnels no one else could possibly have known existed, and I escaped as if I'd never been there at all. Given the room I was placed in, I have always hoped secretly that my father put me there on purpose. It was almost impossible to open the great stone from the inside, but a strong-or desperate-man could do it. So that,should we ever be imprisoned within our own castle, we might flee, as did I in that moment.

I went to Dalaran. There, I stole my love from under their noses and we fled to be married. Then we crossed the mountains and hid. Listening as I ever did to the unwise counsel of Merilina, I went with her as she sought out her people.

Every day, though, her madness increased. She became paranoid, certain that we were followed. Every howl was the cry of hunting dogs. Every sigh of the wind became whispers from devilish followers.

Still, she was beautiful, and never paranoid of me. I endured her peculiarities, and we wandered, lost, for years. It was a lean time, for while we could both hunt well, the game was meager and the winters cold. The years passed and we were happy together, as happy as Merilina could be. Until she began to complain of the lack of children, for we had none.

One day she came home with a child, claiming he was a foundling. He died within a week, and I was distraught. She thought little of it, and went in search of another such stolen 'foundling'. It takes so little time for the living to become attached to children if they are capable or willing; and I was both. A second child appeared in our home and I loved him, as well. I struggled to keep him alive, but Merilina was angered by his crying.

We fought and I left. She tracked me and swore she would never do it again. I went back with her, for in truth I knew nothing else anymore. I had no direction, no sense of life without her.

She kept her promise and the years passed. But there came a day when a new complaint began. She became obsessed with the fact that I was aging while she remained youthful. Her paranoia was turned towards me now, but in a strange way. She could think of nothing but the possibility that she might arrive home to find me dead.

Now we stopped our roving ways, no longer seeking out the elves. She began to experiment in a laboratory that she created, and I lost her to it. She would straggle into the bed at night, exhausted and restless. While I grew gray and gnarled, she was the one who became demented. She muttered to herself endlessly.

The more I aged, the more frightened and insane she became.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: First, thank you so much to all who have reviewed especially, and to those who favorited or followed. I apologize that I'm not more responsive. Things have ramped up here at our house and we're struggling to get our daughter on an insulin pump-and ready for the new school year which starts in just a couple weeks at a new school for her._

_That being said, if you haven't re-read Chapter 6 since I reposted it, you probably should. I reposted it because I condensed author's note and chapter 1... so the last chapter is indeed new._

_And we're off! :)_

**Chapter 7**

_The group paused as food was brought. In silence, Malovici sewed himself. No words were spoken as the friends ate their dinner. The drapes were drawn against the shadows that oozed across the land beyond the window. The fire was rebuilt until it roared merrily in the hearth._

_Drawing the blankets more closely around him, the aging tauren bid the Dreadguard continue. Malovici's voice was low as he spoke, causing the group to fall silent and lean forward to hear._

In those final hours of my life, there was much thinking to be done. Merilina remained obsessed with prolonging my life, and I found myself neglected more and more. It was almost a year of this neglect, before she came in one day to feed me. I should have known. She had barely looked at me for a year, maybe longer. I had been forced to feed myself from the scraps she left behind.

When she came to me, I was a piteous creature. I regretted that I had not died, but not nearly so much as I regretted it when the pain seized me. I ate what she offered, and she watched me with a pernicious gleam in her eyes. When the pain began, I tried to stop eating, but she forced the rest into me.

My death was hideous. I vomited and lost control of myself, and I forgot in that moment that this was a woman I had once loved more than my own life or the kingdom to which I had a responsibility.

I was left with regrets, both for what I had done, but more for what I had not done. I wish then that I had married horse-face. A better life in the service to my kingdom and its people, than to die an undignified death at the hands of the crazed she-witch who claimed to love me.

At last, though, the moment came and I succumbed. This, then, should be the end of my story. It should be the sad finale to a terrible tale. The selfish prince died and it was some weeks later that I, the dead thing that I am, awakened.

_He held a hand up in front of his face, turning it and looking at it._

Imagine it, then. This is what I saw. This was what I awakened to. I was alone and confused and chained to the bed. She must have been listening for me, my beautiful, insane bride. She entered the room, and I did not know her. For a time, she raged, but then she told me the story as she remembered it.

As she spoke, images and memories came clear to me. Nothing was as she remembered it, but her words triggered me to recall. Yet to this day, I mourn what she could not remind me of. I know not the face of my mother, and I never shall. This brings me sorrow to this day.

_He sighed heavily, the sound soughing through the room and teasing the ears of the listeners with remembered sorrow._

I listened to her, and I remembered. I understood then, what I had not while I was yet living. I was crazed as a living person. I heard her words and I recognized the truth of what had happened to us. I had been a crazed fool, but she saw me as her prince who gave up everything to be with her. I was proof to her that she was worth a kingdom, that she was greater than all things. In her mind, I was not a man, but rather I was her trophy.

I saw, as well, that I had seen-and ignored-proof of this all along. She loved deeply her own idea of me. But I was culpable, as well. For I loved my idea of her, not the truth of who she was. I would never have given up my position for a demented creature such as she. A murderer, a crazy woman.

But I had seen her as something she was not, equally as she had seen me wrongly. I had placed all of my dreams and hopes upon her, and she the same with me. I told myself I could not love another woman, that if I could not make it with her, then I would never have children, never have a family, never know what it meant to truly love.

When I woke on that day, at last I got it. Because I would not give her up, I was left without any family at all. I never knew what it meant to truly love or to truly be loved, because I refused to see her honestly. I never waited to get to know her. I saw her, and I assumed that she was 'the one' and I looked no further and asked no further.

I listened to her with growing horror, the memories flooding me and I was overtaken by rage. In my fury, I saw that she had cheated me. She had manipulated me and lied to me. I was unprepared then to take my own part of the responsibility; and so I knew only my hatred and loathing of her.

She laughed. It was no musical sound now. It was the cackle of evil itself. She had her claws into me, and I saw that she would never, ever, ever let me go. She saw the moment I knew. She laughed again, delighted and excited that I knew that I was trapped.

"You are mine, and you will be mine forever."

She had saved my life, but the cost to me was terrible. It mattered not to her, for I was her captive prince. If she could not keep me through love, she would keep me with chains.

But she miscalculated, and in the end it was her undoing.


End file.
